As the pressure grew four years ago ahead of Argentina’s World Cup quarter-final tie against Germany in Cape Town, Martin Demichelis appraised the performance of England’s defence, on the wrong end of a 4-1 defeat to the Germans in the previous round. “Look at the way John Terry played against Germany,” he said, “if I was Terry I wouldn’t be able to go back to my country.”

With Demichelis in the side, Argentina promptly lost 4-0 to Germany. When he returned to Bayern Munich for pre-season, Demichelis found himself out of Louis van Gaal’s plans and he left the club later that year for Malaga, embarking on the path that eventually took him to Manchester City with Manuel Pellegrini. Those six months are a snapshot of a career that has encompassed its fair share of boom and bust.

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On Sunday night, Demichelis plays in a World Cup final. He did not start the tournament in the Argentina side which began with a five-man defence in their opening game against Bosnia-Herzegovina and nor was he a first choice in the back four that Alejandro Sabella selected for the next two group games against Iran and Nigeria and the round of 16 win over Switzerland.

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Then, ahead of the quarter-final against Belgium, Sabella has second thoughts about Federico Fernandez, the Napoli centre-half, and Demichelis was called into the side. At 33, he had said earlier in the year that he was “95 per cent sure” that he would be spending this summer “on a beach somewhere”, but here is Demichelis in a World Cup final against Germany with the hopes of his team largely dependent on how well they defend.

World Cup 2014: 20 things we learned

World Cup 2014: 20 things we learned

1/20
Red faced

Vincent Tan, owner of relegated Cardiff City, is proved wrong again: red shirts do not increase the chances of success. Red was the most popular first-choice shirt colour in the tournament. Nine teams picked it, yet five, including big guns Spain and Portugal, failed to get out of their groups. Two more fell in the second round, and the furthest any crimson campaigners got was the quarter-finals – Ivory Coast and Belgium.

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2/20
Don’t get carried away

Not for the first time at a World Cup, the number of goals (added to by Netherlands' 5-1 thrashing of Spain) in the first round sparked talk of a new record. But the group stages are no guide for the latter rounds, and the goal rush dried up once the sudden-death reality of the knockouts took hold.

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3/20
Letter of advice

To succeed in these finals you needed your nation’s name to start with a letter in the first half of the alphabet, Algeria (pictured) being the most surprising. Of the 32 nations, only nine started with a letter in the latter half of the alphabet. Of those, five got through to the second round, but out of eight quarter-finalists only Netherlands represented N-Z.

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4/20
Well done Jose

For Jose Mourinho to get £50 million from PSG for David Luiz looks great business. The Chelsea manager’s chief concern was always the Brazilian centre-half’s defensive ability, and the semi-final against Germany, when he effectively abandoned his post, graphically proved Mourinho’s point.

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5/20
Spain lacked energy

Spain’s feeble performance, especially against the Netherlands, proved that at the top level age isn’t as important as freshness. Many of their players are in their prime and playing for top clubs. And it was not exactly an old team. But success can sap a player’s energy as much as age.

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6/20
Europe can win away

The fact that this World Cup was only a Javier Mascherano tackle and a penalty shoot-out away from being a third successive all-European final shows the old belief that only South American teams win on that continent needs updating. It wasn’t the climate that prevented the Netherland’s best player, Arjen Robben, scoring a late winner against Argentina.

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7/20
Hair cuts both ways

The jury is out on whether changing your hairstyle aids success. Ronaldo’s zig-zag didn’t help him or Portugal, while Neymar’s blond tint presaged his injury and Brazil’s 1-7 thrashing. But Argentina defender Martin Demichelis has been reborn as a player since he lost his ponytail. The newly shorn Marouane Fellaini must be hoping for the same at Old Trafford.

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8/20
Messy not Messi

The “vanishing foam” may have kept defensive walls back 10 yards at free-kicks, but it did nothing to help the free-kick taker strike the ball cleanly. The ball had to be kicked through the ring of foam circling the ball, splattering it everywhere.

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9/20
Money talks in Africa

Nigeria’s Stephen Keshi (above right) became the continent’s first manager to reach the second round, where there were two African teams for the first time. It should have been a landmark tournament; instead three federations got involved in financial disputes as the old problems resurfaced.

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10/20
A star is born

Given the media globalisation of the club game, it seemed rather old-fashioned to imagine a hitherto unregarded player making himself properly known at a tournament. But in this World Cup James Rodriguez (right) of Colombia has gone from the fringes of the elite to worldwide superstar.

11/20
Referees became softies

Allegedly on Fifa orders, so many fouls went unpunished by a book- ing for the perpetrator. The statistics also suggest leniency: 10 red cards (above) is fewer than any finals since 1986.

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12/20
Fifa’s timely earner

The game’s governing body may be a “non-profit organisation”, but they are still very good at earning. That could be seen every time the sponsored watch-shaped stoppage-time board (above) was held up by the fourth official.

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13/20
Corners are key

Set-pieces are supposedly the weapon of choice for weaker teams, but much of Germany’s potency derives from them. For all the squad’s talent, the key opening goals in both their quarter-final and semi-final were from corners.

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14/20
Rotation is crucial

The three best-performing semi-finalists all shared one trait: they changed either formation or line-up in every match, making them very difficult to work out. It was a factor in why Argentina-Netherlands was so tense, and one explanation why Brazil fell apart. Without Neymar and Thiago Silva, they could not adapt.

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15/20
Club and country

A club season is no guide to World Cup form. Steven Gerrard was immense for Liverpool, anonymous for England. On the other side of things, there is Sergio Romero . The goalkeeper only made three appearances for Monaco last season but has been one of Argentina’s stars.

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16/20
Asia still minor

So much for the breakthrough of Asian football. All four teams finished bottom of their groups, without a win between them. It was so bleak that the South Korean Football Association even offered a collective bow of apology.

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17/20
Oh lucky man

The records show that England had the seventh worst campaign of the 32 teams. Unlike those who outperformed him, such as Greece’s Fernando Santos and even Japan’s Alberto Zacceroni, Roy Hodgson has stayed in employment.

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18/20
Shoot-out kings

Argentina 1990 remain the only side to have won two shoot-outs in the same World Cup. So it was perhaps fitting that it was Alex Sabella’s side who prevented the Dutch team from emulating them (above). Argentina never looked like losing from the moment of the first penalty.

19/20
Tweet tweet

The second semi-final offered a first, as Argentina tweeted their list of penalty takers. It almost felt like they were calling Louis van Gaal’s bluff. It’s hard to say whether it was a factor, but it did reflect how this World Cup has been dominated by social media.

20/20
No new balls please

Complaints about the ball have always been one of the tournament’s clichés, but not this time, with a complete absence of discussion about it. The ball is doing exactly what it is meant to, meaning attackers are more comfortable with it.

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At times in the Premier League last season he had the look of a man who had opened a door expecting to find a quiet garden, only to walk in the middle of King’s Cross station at rush hour. He seemed bewildered, not least against Chelsea when he was played as a defensive midfielder at Stamford Bridge in his first start after injury against a confident, attacking home side. But if you check his record for City, they tended to win most of the games that he played.

His pursuit and foul of his international team-mate Lionel Messi in the Champions League tie in February was the season’s most predictable red card from the moment Demichelis set off, the only question being whether the latter would manage to bring Messi down inside or outside the area. It made Demichelis look faintly absurd, and in such a big game too, but then Messi does that to lots of defenders.

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In an interview given to the Catalan press before the World Cup finals, Demichelis said that his five-year-old son Bastian had cried watching a video of a five-year-old Messi playing football, having been struck by the realisation that he had nothing like the same ability. “I told him not to worry,” Demichelis said. “Neither do I.”

His career has been punctuated with errors that have had repercussions. He lingered over the ball too long in a World Cup qualifier against Bolivia in Buenos Aires in 2011 and allowed the striker Marcelo Martins to steal it away from him and score. Argentina drew the game 1-1 and Demichelis was not selected again until his end-of-season form earned him an unexpected place in Sabella’s 30-man squad, and then his final 23.

He is the kind of defender to whom things happen, but in his two games at this World Cup against Belgium and Netherlands he has found himself in a team that suits his talents. He can pass the ball which makes him a good foil for the much less complicated Ezequiel Garay alongside him. He has played well in a defence that sits deep, takes no risks and battles hard, as they had to against the Dutch.

Demichelis trains with Argentina

Whether Demichelis sees out the second year of his contract at City remains to be seen with the club now close to the signing of Porto’s Eliaquim Mangala, whom they missed out on last summer. When that failed, Pellegrini turned to a player he had managed at River Plate and then at Malaga, whom Demichelis had left last summer following rows over tax bills and unpaid wages. He joined Atletico Madrid but never played for them, joining City carrying a knee injury.

The long hair has gone too, a style-change that took place when he was named in the World Cup squad, with Demichelis tweeting pictures of the unlovable thrash-metal pony-tail undercut being consigned to history. It will not help him to defend any better but it certainly looks a lot more presentable. The Argentina players are devotees of Twitter with a steady stream of dressing room pictures posted after games. The Argentina football association tweeted the list of penalty takers ahead of the shoot-out against the Netherlands.

Demichelis has had a fine career. In May he won his fifth league title in Europe, to go with the four Bundesligas won in seven years with Bayern Munich. He won the German Cup with Bayern four times too but lost the Champions League final to Internazionale in 2010 in what was another bad game for him. He struggled against his fellow Argentine, the striker Diego Milito, who scored twice.

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When Demichelis is good, his performances tend to pass without comment. When he is bad, he is a liability. His foul on Marc-Antoine Fortune, which resulted in a penalty to Wigan Athletic in the FA Cup defeat in March was one of those games when it goes wrong for him and the consequences are severe. But you have to hand it him, there are plenty of stars who have gone home from this tournament long ago, and the old warrior is hanging in there.